The teacher-student relationship is based on a shared aim -- your awakening to the mystery of being. It is not based on mutual profit or on emotional connection. The responsibilities of a teacher are three: To show you the possibility of presence To train you in the techniques and methods you will need To direct your attention to the reactive … [Read more...] about Responsibilities: teacher and student
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Imagine You're Enlightened
This article first appeared in Buddhadharma, Fall 2007. In 1974 I was translating for Dezhung Rinpoche, a wonderfully warm and kind scholar and master who had settled in Seattle in the early sixties, soon after the Tibetan diaspora. He had come out of retirement in response to the interest in Tibetan Buddhism that had developed in the seventies and … [Read more...] about Imagine You're Enlightened
How to Stay Balanced and Productive
This article first appeared in Shambhala Sun, January 2005 under the title "Breaking the Habit Habit". Everyone knows the old adage "You can't see the forest for the trees." In the work environment, the trees are the immediate pressures you feel: demands and directives from above, needs and problems from below. The forest is the bigger picture, the … [Read more...] about How to Stay Balanced and Productive
Six Ways Not to Approach Meditation
The Six Realms of Existence comprise a principal feature of Tibetan Buddhist cosmology. The possibilities of existence are classified into six forms of existence: hell beings dominated by anger ghosts and demons dominated by greed animals dominated by dullness humans dominated by desire titans dominated by envy, and gods dominated by pride Like … [Read more...] about Six Ways Not to Approach Meditation
Compassion, Culture, and Belief
From 1987 to 1989, I served as the Buddhist representative on the AIDS Interfaith Council in Los Angeles. At one meeting I was struck by the way a Christian Fundamentalist minister from a conservative county in California talked to her more liberal Episcopalian and Jewish colleagues. "Don’t try to teach our people about your beliefs in gay rights … [Read more...] about Compassion, Culture, and Belief
Buddha Nature: Living in Attention
Discomfort is the stimulus for creativity. Or, as Joseph Goldstein says, "We move only when we are uncomfortable." The first noble truth, "There is suffering," implies that there should be a lot of creativity in the world. This creativity can be one of two types. The first is an active reaction to suffering, seeking to avoid it in the most … [Read more...] about Buddha Nature: Living in Attention